The Storm Without by Tony Black

"The Storm Without" by Tony Black introduces two new characters to
Scottish crime fiction. The first is ex-policeman Doug Michie, a man returning
to his boyhood home after being kicked out of the Police Service of Northern
Ireland in the aftermath of a case that cost him both his career and his
marriage. The second new character is the town of Ayr. Setting is critical to
the success of crime fiction, and with Ayr, a port and resort in south west
Scotland, Tony Black is breaking new ground.

Fans of the genre will be familiar with the darker side of cities
like Aberdeen, Glasgow and, especially, Edinburgh. But you don't automatically
think of Ayr as having enough of a dark side to provide a convincing backdrop.
Well think again. It's a well-worn cliché to suggest that the Ayr that
Doug Michie drives round in his Audi TT is not the Ayr the tourist board would
want publicised, and it's probably also untrue: crime fiction has brought a
number of places to the attention of a larger audience, and having an active
fictional detective on the scene adds another string to the town's bow.

Except that Doug Michie doesn't come back to his native Ayr to be a
detective. He comes back to try to rediscover a possibly irretrievable past, to
visit his alcoholic mother, and to see if anything can be rebuilt from the
shattered ruins of his own life. And perhaps to renew his links with his
literary inspiration, Robert Burns. But things don't work out that way. A
chance meeting with an old flame finds Doug persuaded to investigate why her
son has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, and Doug's questioning
provokes a response that suggests that there are those in the town who do not
want him to uncover the truth. The world Doug Michie inhabits is a bleak one,
and there's a sense in which his fixation on finding out why a girl was
murdered, and who by, is a substitute for what he really ought to be doing,
finding out what has happened to his own life, and why.

This novel first saw the light of day in serialised form in the
Ayrshire Post, and it is no surprise that it was very well received. It is
highly entertaining, fast paced and tightly, almost sparingly, written. Tony
Black clearly knows Ayr intimately, and though it never quite gets to the point
where a street map would help the reader follow the plot, the action moves
around the town with an easy assurance. It seems we may well be meeting Doug
Michie again in future novels, which after this first outing would be very
welcome indeed.